NAMM Interview: Simon Hawemann
Nightmarer is getting ready to follow up on their 2018 full-length debut Cacophony of Terror via Season of Mist later this year, and I sat down with guitarist/journalist Simon Hawemann during NAMM to learn more about this up-and-coming death metal band.
I want to dig right into Nightmarer so people can get to know more about this band. Harsh chaos and cacophony defines the sound of Nightmarer, musically, what drove you guys to what you like to call “total dissonance worship”? What is that to you?
I think it’s just something that over the years I started gravitating towards, trying to find ways to make the music sound more unpleasant. Dissonance is obviously something that lends itself to it, and using dissonance in metal is just a way to create a very tense, dark atmosphere, and feelings of discomfort, and yeah, it’s just something I explored over a longer period of time and that has formed the way I write music on the guitar for the last couple of years. I would say at this point, probably for the last ten years, I’ve dabbled in that kind of space.
With your album Cacophony of Terror, I feel there seems to be an overarching story behind it, now I don’t think it was intended as a concept album per se, but is there still some kind of connecting story behind it?
There’s something like a story behind it for sure, and it’s basically, we’re kind of playing with the name a little bit, the name is not necessarily super defined, but you could understand the Nightmarer to be an entity, whether that is an entity that kind of controls your nightmares, or it could be someone that is stuck in a perpetual nightmare, who knows? We’re not trying to define it too much, but it’s something we kind of play with, and the album itself was basically about a character that found himself stuck in what he perceived to be a nightmare, and in various ways he’s trying to escape it, to the point of self-harm and ultimately, it kills him. So it’s just a very miserable existence that is described throughout the album, and it ends in death.
In true Death Metal form.
Exactly, why not?
So what is something essential that you would want somebody being introduced to Nightmarer for the first time to know?
Honestly, I think I would just let the music speak for itself. We’re not a band that is explaining too much, we’re not super communicative, even when we play, we don’t say a word during our set. For us, it’s a very personal experience, which is great because you can really get into it when you’re not trying to entertain someone necessarily, but you’re trying to do your thing, and it either clicks with the audience and they kind of find that access, or they don’t, and that’s fine too, I don’t stress out about that. I feel like we try to just let our music speak for itself, so yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily explain too much.
I like that idea, you’re not necessarily putting yourself out there to say, “Hey, everybody, pay attention to this!”, it’s like, “I’m here, I’m going to play, I’m going to do the same thing I would be doing if I was by myself playing this, and you get out of it what you can”, that’s a cool concept, it’s different.
Yeah, for sure. I think explaining everything to the tee is kind of boring, and oversharing everything is a little boring as a band. We’re very focused on just pushing our craft out there, so that’s what we do.
You mentioned you’re from Germany, but you guys are based out of Tampa, right?
Well, I am in Tampa, our vocalist is in New York, our original drummer, he’s German, too, he was just visiting me in Tampa to write our new album. And on tour, if we have to, we have an American fill-in drummer too, who’s based out of New Jersey, and our new guitarist is based out of Portland, so we’re really all over the place.
All over the map! So how does that work from the recording side of things?
It’s not too bad, because I have a studio and so does our other guitarist, so basically, we’re able to record everything but drums in our own studio, and the writing process, or pre-production process, is done with drum programming, and then our drummer, we book studio time for him in Germany and he tracks real drums, and everything else is tracked at our studios, even the vocals are tracked at my house. So, we’re pretty autonomous in that regard, and it’s a good way of working, you have a lot of control over what you’re doing and control over your finances, so it’s good.
And then it all comes together in the end even though you’re all separated. So talk to me about what you’re doing at NAMM this weekend?
I am here with ESP Guitars, I started working with them right after NAMM last year, so this is my first year with them officially. I designed a limited model with an ESP dealer that is coming out in February, there are only sixteen units, I think three are still available, the dealer is called “The X Palace”, it’s not necessarily a signature guitar, but more of a limited run that I designed, so I guess it’s as close to a non-official signature as it gets, you could say. And I’m also here as a journalist, I write for a German guitar magazine, I’ll have to take photos and talk to some people and write an article about it.
So you’re getting both the media and the exhibitor side of things, that’s really cool, not everybody gets that dual experience of NAMM.
Yeah, not everybody gets it, but it’s fun, it’s good times. It’s a lot of work, but I enjoy it.
Good! So talk to me more about your gear setup when it comes to that dissonant sound that you love?
So, I’m playing a Baritone 7-string guitar that’s technically tuned like an 8-string guitar, I just don’t like playing 8-string guitars, it’s cumbersome and just not fun for me to play. I basically play an 8-string tuning without a high E string, and the way I typically write guitar is…you know, when I start writing guitar, just one guitar sounds very weird, and the second guitar creates the dissonant intervals, so I always kind of think in two guitars, that’s just the way I started writing a long time ago. That’s the guitars I use, I use a Kemper amp, which is a digital amp, which helps a lot with the low tunings we use…tube amps, although I love tube amps and have them in my studio, I think the convenience of using a digital amp like the Kemper helps translating our sound in a more controlled way. But I still run it through a power amp and into a guitar cab, it’s kind of like best of both worlds, I use a digital rig, but I still use big cabinets and I like volume on stage, so that’s what I’m using.
Another thing, I’ve heard that you’re big on collecting vinyl, would you say that you prefer that over other formats?
I definitely do prefer it, I mainly listen to digital or vinyl, digital out of convenience and vinyl because I do like supporting the kind of music and bands that I listen to, and I think it’s the most pleasant format, honestly. Not just the sound, people argue whether or not it sounds better, I wouldn’t really say it sounds better or worse than certain other types of physical sound carriers, but I also like the fact that the effort that is put into the artwork really shines on the 12” format and whatnot, so…you get to be a little more creative with vinyl than you do with CDs. So I think it’s just a very cool medium, as a collector and as a musician, I like getting very involved in that aspect of our process.
Now, back to Nightmarer, what do you see in the near future?
So we are about to wrap up our new album, I’m actually flying out to Portland to write the rest of the album with our guitarist, Keith, and drums are being recorded in Germany in February, so that’s what we’re mainly working on right now. I think it’s not going to come out before Fall of 2020, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not something else coming out before then. Not going to say much more than that, people need to stay tuned if they’re interested, and they will see or hear something new soon enough. And I’m sure we’re going to go get back on the road, there are plans for Europe, I can’t unfortunately today say what it is, still waiting for it to be announced, but there are plans for Europe and I’m sure we’re going to tour the U.S. this year as well.
Awesome, lots of stuff to look forward to. Thank you for your time today, and have a good time at NAMM.
Thank you, I appreciate it, you have a good time.
For more on Nightmarer, visit: https://www.facebook.com/nightmarercult/